


The Best Made Plans

by IreneSpring



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alex Cabot POV, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, Pre-Relationship, Seriously A LOT of Fluff, Thanksgiving, my first 5+1 wish me luck, squad cameo at the end, there's light angst for a paragraph and then immediately a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:14:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneSpring/pseuds/IreneSpring
Summary: Five times Olivia and Alex spend Thanksgiving alone together and one time they celebrate with their entire family.
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Alexandra Cabot
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	The Best Made Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Wait, I wrote a thing with only one ship? Insane.  
> Anyway, enjoy some nice holiday fluff. I figured it's worth branching out to more normal-length fics at some point, and I also like honing my romance writing skills, and there is a lot of my romance writing in this.  
> This fic does take place in the same universe as "Scenes from Forlini's (and other, less important places)," my main project, so if you're familiar with that piece you might recognize some minor references to it.

**1.**

Alex Cabot doesn’t care for Thanksgiving. Beyond the disturbing historical context, she feels like it mandates people create a facade of family togetherness. Alex does not have the patience to create a facade and she certainly doesn’t have any semblance of family togetherness. So, this Thanksgiving, she’s planning on sitting on her couch, maybe eating a turkey sandwich, drinking a lot of wine, and luxuriating in one of the few days where she doesn’t have any work. The next day she’ll probably show up at the precinct just to enjoy the schadenfreude resulting from cops having to deal with Black Friday in NYC. She has a plan, and that plan is to not have a plan. She’s going to relax. 

Then Olivia Benson knocks on her office door, and Alex immediately becomes un-relaxed.

“How can I help you, Detective?” she asks, keeping her tone as clipped and professional as she can.

“I’m heading out for the holiday, Counselor. I just wanted to check if you were still here.” That’s odd. Why would Olivia care if she had left? Alex feels her heart rate increasing and wills herself to think logically about this. If Alex is here that means the detectives might have more work, and Olivia is just checking to make sure she doesn’t actually have to work. Hell, Olivia probably has a boyfriend she wants to spend time with. Alex hopes she isn’t imagining that Olivia might return her feelings, but Olivia’s so beautiful that Alex has trouble imagining that she goes home to an empty apartment. 

“Don’t worry, Detective, I’m just finishing something up. You can go home.”

“Yeah, I figured. Do you have any Thanksgiving plans?” Olivia asks. Alex blinks. A personal question. Not work related. How odd.

“No, I don’t, for once. I’m planning on fusing with my couch.” That startles a laugh out of Olivia and Alex preens. 

“No family nearby?”

“I have plenty of family nearby, they just don’t like me very much.” Alex notices Olivia’s eyes fill with concern and throws her a rueful smile. “Don’t worry about it, Liv, the feeling is more than mutual.” Alex realizes her mistake two seconds later. She called Olivia, as in Detective Benson, her colleague, a nickname. Alex clears her throat. “What about you, Detective? Any plans?”

“No. I’m in the same boat as you.”

“Ah. I’d say that’s unfortunate but I’m actually kind of happy with how tomorrow is looking for me.”

“So you wouldn’t want to come over to my place for dinner?” Alex freezes, and almost asks Olivia to repeat the question. They’ve been spending more time together, that’s undeniably true, but neither of them has ever been so bold. Before she can regain enough presence of mind to respond, Olivia interprets her silence as a negative. “Obviously you don’t have to,” she says, staring at her hands. “I just figured that since we’re both alone I could pick up two servings of turkey from the deli with those pickles I know you like and we could… I don’t know… hang out? God, it’s been so long since I just spent time with a friend... I’m sorry if this is weird…”

“No, no! I want to. I’d love to go. Deli turkey is my favorite food,” Alex sputters, finally landing on what she hopes is a charming grin. Olivia knows what kind of pickles she likes. Holy shit. “It’s just, you’re not planning on spending Thanksgiving with the Stablers?” 

“Oh God no. Elliot’s like family, he is, but there’s only so much ‘perfect Catholic family + 1’ dynamic I can take. I just don’t really fit in.”

“You’d rather spend Thanksgiving with me?” Alex likes to think she has some game, and even when she’s as head over heels as she is for Olivia, she still knows her way around a line of questioning. Olivia blushes and Alex grins in triumph.

“Yeah. Yeah I would.” Well. That’s useful.

“Surprisingly, spending Thanksgiving with you actually does sound more fun than sitting in solitude in my apartment.”

“Good to know.” Olivia smirks and just like that Alex loses the upper hand. She can hear her heart hammering. Goddammit. “See you tomorrow for friendsgiving.” Alex sighs inwardly. They’re friends. That’s it. Of course that’s it.

“Glad you consider me a friend, Olivia. I’ve always seen you as an acquaintance.” Olivia rolls her eyes with a fondness Alex doesn’t _think_ she’s imagining, but she’s not sure of anything when it comes to Olivia Benson.

“Okay sure, Alex.” Just as she reaches the door, Olivia turns around one last time. “Oh, and Counselor? Wear something nice. It is Thanksgiving, after all.” Alex is glad Olivia leaves before the grin on her face fully takes over. Maybe she’s not imagining anything after all. 

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

**2.**

“What would you say if I asked to do nothing but this for all of Thanksgiving?” Olivia asks, her arm draped around Alex’s shoulders as she surfs through different channels trying to find something at all worth watching. Alex sighs happily, tilting her head from its position on Olivia’s shoulder to kiss her on the cheek.

“No objections.”

“I mean, I know that you love to plan big events but I feel like we have something that works right now, you know? And that’s how I want to spend my time. With you. Like this.”

“I realize you didn’t go to law school, Liv, but when I say ‘no objections’ that means the motion has passed, and no longer needs to be debated.” Alex laughs as Olivia does her best to elbow her. “Regretting that part about wanting to spend time with me, huh?”

“Strangely enough, I’m not.” Alex doesn’t even bother to hide her infatuated smile. This is what Olivia does to her. She makes her smile all the time. She puts up with her dumb law jokes. She gives her a warm feeling in her chest with every sweet offhand comment. Honestly, Olivia gives Alex that warm feeling in her chest even when she isn’t even saying anything at all. Alex loves her.

Oh crap.

They’ve been dating for a while. Almost a year, actually. So obviously, it’s natural that Alex would love Olivia. Right? It makes perfect sense. It’s just that Alex has never thought about it like that before. It’s one of the things that Alex likes so much about Olivia: she’s one of the few things Alex has never had to overthink. She’d never bothered to analyze what she was feeling, and had just enjoyed it. But now, here was this realization. This realization hit her with perfect clarity. Alex Cabot is in love with Olivia Benson. It really seems obvious now. How could she not be?

“You go somewhere?” Olivia asks, seemingly able to tell that Alex’s mind is decidedly not on whatever she had just said.

“Hmm?”

“What were you thinking about?”

“You.”

“Good thoughts?”

“I only ever have good thoughts about you,” Alex says honestly. Olivia laughs and kisses Alex’s forehead. 

“Can I say something really cheesy?” 

“Please.”

“I’m thankful for you.” Alex snorts, even as her chest threatens to explode with the force of what she’s feeling. Love. What she’s feeling has a name. It’s invigorating, finally having a word for it, and Alex can’t stop smiling.

“I’m thankful for you, too.” It’s not exactly saying the famous three words, but Alex hopes Olivia gets the meaning. Exactly how thankful for Olivia she is. Alex could, and probably will at some point, prepare a presentation about how thankful she is. It’s the kind of thing that really does deserve charts. Academic presentations: that’s how Cabots show their love. 

“Can you quantify that for me? Maybe show me a graph of your relative happiness before and after you met me? I’m not entirely convinced.” Alex rolls her eyes.

“You know one of these days, I’m actually going to do that, and you’re going to have to sit through the entire thing.”

“I think that’d be nice,” Olivia comments absentmindedly, moving one of her hands to play with Alex’s hair. “It would certainly be different. All the previous partners I’ve had went traditional and just said ‘I love you.’” Alex pauses. In some recess of her mind she had already been planning a dramatic declaration complete with flowers and possibly a sky-writer. But Olivia is giving her an opening, and Alex is nothing if not an opportunist. 

“I can do that too.”

“Really?” Olivia asks, pulling away from Alex slightly so that she can make direct eye contact.

“Of course,” Alex answers confidently. “I love you, Liv.” Olivia stares at her for a moment with a wide smile and Alex thinks she sees tears in her eyes.

“I love you too, Al.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

**3.**

“Why does it feel like it’s been at least a decade since we last did this?” Alex asks, handing Olivia her serving of turkey. 

“I mean, it has been five years.” 

“Yeah but I’ve lived through five year intervals before, this one feels like longer.”

“I feel like you’re trying to bait me into saying something corny about how this was the five years we were apart.”

“Well, that would be appreciated.” It did feel like longer. Alex could’ve sworn it’s been twenty years since she and Olivia last celebrated Thanksgiving together. Up until she and Olivia had restarted, or resumed --whatever the term was-- their relationship, Alex always felt pathetic for missing Olivia over the holidays as much as she did. In both Wisconsin and Texas she was always dragged to some sort of celebration for her work, and as she ate dollar store cake and scanned paper cutouts of turkeys and historically inaccurate pilgrim hats she would think about how the day prior to Thanksgiving had always been laid back at the DA’s office. How one fateful year Olivia had rescued her from her solitude, and invited her to what was in retrospect definitely supposed to be their first date.

No one rescued her from her solitude while she was in Witness Protection, though to be fair she had carefully cultivated a ‘crazy cat lady’ reputation so that no one would even try. 

Even when she was back in New York, she always felt alone on holidays. Rafael, bless his heart for single handedly keeping her sane, did have living family he was on speaking terms with, and while he probably would have invited her if Alex had allowed herself to show any signs of misery, that was a bridge too far. She wasn’t about to intrude. The only person she had ever felt comfortable around on Thanksgiving was Olivia. 

“You know I’d mean it, right?” Olivia asks. “I swear you’re the only person that’s ever made me actually enjoy today.”

“Really?” Alex is still surprised at how Olivia actually, genuinely returns her feelings. Even after years and a long talk about how their separation had been filled with mutual pining, it still feels too good to be true.

“Yeah. It always used to remind me of how I didn’t have any family that actually loved me. But spending it with you made subverting the norm a conscious decision. Like you and me against the world.”

“I felt the same.”

“Is it okay if I ask why you didn’t call me then? I mean, if you felt the same way-”

“I thought the unreciprocated feelings were on my side,” Alex says. “I know you dated, and I’m not saying that I blame you for anything, I tried to date too, but I just thought you’d moved on. That I’d just be making everything awkward. And I know how hard you work, you didn’t need that in your life.”

“I pretty much thought the same thing about you-”

“You didn’t.”

“I did! I figured if you wanted to talk to me you would call, and I didn’t want to call you and get in the way of your recovery process. I figured you might’ve just wanted to sever all ties with Manhattan SVU, and then I saw a newspaper saying you might be dating Rafael-”

“Okay, that’s disturbing and that newspaper was lying. It’s Rafael. He’s my friend. Not to mention that I believe the technical term for my sexuality is ‘gay as a three dollar bill.’”

“Stranger things have happened!” Olivia insists and at Alex’s raised eyebrow she just sighs. “I was scared. Like what I said last time we talked, I was scared that you wouldn’t want to see me. And frankly, it really sucked not having you around. So I’m glad you’re around. Here.”

“So you’re thankful for me again this year, huh?” Alex teases, leaning in to kiss Olivia.

“Absolutely,” Olivia confirms once they part.

“Well good, because I’m thankful for you too.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

**4.**

“You know, maybe we should have a fall themed wedding,” Olivia suggests, absentmindedly scrolling through a florists’ website.

“Absolutely not. The only seasonal wedding with a good color scheme is winter and I do not intend to get married when it’s freezing cold.”

“Okay, no need to make a federal case out of it,” Olivia jokes, eyeing Alex’s legal pad that she’s currently jotting down ideas in. 

“This is a state case.”

“Oh, my apologies.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to do anything fancy this year?” Alex asks, just as she’s asked every year. “I mean I know we’ve spent Thanksgiving morning either working or doing wedding planning but there’s still time to call in some favors and maybe get a reservation.”

“Alex, I promise, I’m more than happy to have a laid back Thanksgiving. You, me, and _A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving_ is all I need.”

“That sounds good to me too.” Alex sets down her legal pad with a sigh. “Okay, no new ground is going to be broken on this front until after the break, I guess. Want to join me on the couch?”

“Absolutely.” As they settle in together, Olivia leaning against Alex’s shoulder, Alex lets out a contented sigh. 

“This is nice.” Olivia raises an eyebrow and Alex looks up at her in confusion. “What?”

“It’s just that no one believed me when I said we were doing a low maintenance Thanksgiving. They all assumed we were going to rent some mansion and host all of New York.”

“That sounds like fun, we should try that one year,” Alex muses, smiling as Olivia laughs. “Seriously though, I can be relaxed. Just not often and usually I choose not to.”

“I have every confidence in you,” Olivia says, pecking her on the lips. 

“Speaking of not choosing to, though, I think it was rather reckless of you to suggest a fall theme even though I just started the color scheme section of my binder and have been leaning towards purple.”

“Purple?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously?”

“What? You look good in purple!”

“I know, but you do realize that you and I will be wearing white, right?”

“Yes, thank you, having never been to a wedding before, I forgot the custom. I’m suggesting purple because it’s one of my favorite colors, and, although it pains me to admit this because it’s very cheesy, you wore purple to our first date and that date cemented just how much I was certain about you.”

“Oh.”

“So you’re good with the purple?”

“Yeah. But I thought we agreed that our de facto first date was on Thanksgiving?”

“You were wearing purple then.”

“I was?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well I definitely remember,” Alex says emphatically. She waits for Olivia to respond, and when she doesn’t, she looks over to see Olivia smiling widely. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just… I love you so much, Al. Like you have no idea how much.” Even after years, Alex still feels her heart rate speed up. 

“I think I have some idea,” Alex assures her, pulling Olivia in for a kiss. “I love you too. I’m so happy, so _grateful_ , that I get to marry you.” Sometimes Alex worries that maybe she’s made too many jokes about how thrilled she is to be planning the wedding. Maybe Olivia doesn’t fully understand that Alex didn’t propose just so she could pick some nice flowers and wear a pretty dress. For Alex, the enjoyment of planning things has always stemmed from the underlying feelings of an event. It’s why she goes all out for her friends’ birthdays. It’s why her Christmas parties are the stuff of legend. It’s why she wants her wedding to be straight out of a fairytale. Because her work reflects what she feels, and a good party can make other people feel the same way. “You know, I talk a lot about planning the perfect wedding, but if you said the word I would go down to the courthouse with you right now. You understand that, don’t you? That’s about me and you. And if you don’t want a party we can just throw on some dresses and get married right now.”

“Have ever given you any indication that I don’t want a party, Al?” Olivia asks. “Because I do, I want a party. I love our laid back Thanksgivings, but those are different. For our wedding, I want you to do your worst. I want a celebration, where I can show you off.” Alex melts. She grabs Olivia and half pulls her on top of her for a kiss. 

“You’re the love of my life, Liv.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

**5.**

“You know, I think this is the first time we’ve actually cooked an entire turkey for Thanksgiving,” Olivia realizes, shutting the door to the oven with a decisive crash. 

“There’s a reason for that. We’re going to be eating leftovers until New Year’s.”

“Try to bring me down all you want, sweetheart, but it is our first Thanksgiving as a married couple and we’re going to have turkey that we cook ourselves-”

“That you cooked yourself-”

“-and we’re going to sit down and have a Thanksgiving dinner like we’re in a wholesome gay Norman Rockwell painting. End of story.”

“Yes ma’am,” Alex says with a wicked smile. “You should really take the sergeant’s exam, Liv, giving orders is a… good look for you.”

“Stop it, you’re going to distract me from the turkey.”

“You just put it in the oven, we probably have hours.”

“We are having a wholesome Thanksgiving. Wholesome.”

“Okay, okay. Wholesome.”

As Alex finishes loading the dishwasher, she catches Olivia looking at her with a dreamy expression on her face.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Thanks for indulging me on this, I know it didn’t really mean anything to you.”

“Nonsense. I know I gave you some crap but the turkey was delicious and you know I love having dinner with you. Plus we got an awesome photo for the Christmas card.”

“That is true. Still… I just really appreciate it.”

“Liv, is something wrong?”

“I don’t know, it’s just been a long year, you know? With all the change… Cragen and John retiring, and you with this new job, and Simon… I just really appreciate what counts as family time right now.” Olivia shrugs awkwardly and starts to move away but Alex quickly catches up to her.

“Hey, you know that this wasn’t a burden for me at all, right? That I want to spend time with you, just to talk? Because I do. I really do. I was flirting with you because you’re so insanely beautiful that it was natural, but trust me, I don’t have any problems with wholesomeness. Also the food was amazing. You were 100% right about the turkey.”

“I know,” Olivia says smugly, but her smile is warm and she’s wiping at her eyes. “I thought we agreed at the start of our marriage that you would just trust me on anything and everything related to food.”

“I feel like I wouldn’t agree to something with such broad parameters.”

“I thought you just said that the turkey was excellent.”

“It was, but that doesn’t mean whatever ungodly thing you’re going to want to cook next will be good.”

“I was planning to make apple crumble.”

“Absolutely do that. I trust you.”

“I’m going to need you to formally state, and then sign with a handshake, that you trust me in all food related matters.”

“Seriously?”

“Do you want apple crumble or not?”

“I don’t appreciate being extorted.”

“Noted.”

“What if you make a very bad decision in the future?”

“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” Alex nods. She can’t find it in her to disagree any further, even as a joke. Not when Olivia is looking at her with so much love in her eyes, like Alex somehow holds the secrets to the universe. She can’t disagree, not when she’s never been this happy in her life, when she can’t imagine being any happier. Alex trusts Olivia. She always has. 

“I trust you completely in all matters of food.” She extends her hand to Olivia, who shakes it with a laugh. “I should warn you a handshake is not legally binding.”

“Be quiet.”Alex falls silent, smiling at Olivia with what she imagines to be a completely dopey grin. Olivia grins back and pulls her into an embrace. “Come here.” Alex allows herself to enjoy the feeling of the hug and the peace of the silence before speaking.

“We should do this every Thanksgiving. The turkey. The dinner. All of it.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

**+1**

“Al, I know we sort of have a tradition, but I think now that we have Noah we should maybe do something bigger for Thanksgiving,” Olivia mentions casually.

“Why?”

“I mean you and I never did anything because we were subverting the traditions that require a large family gathering because we both had bad experiences with our families, but shouldn’t we want Noah to actually have those good experiences? Like a large and happy gathering?”

“I’m all for it if you have an idea of who you actually want to invite.”

“I figure we could invite the squad.”

“Really? They don’t have their own families to go home to?”

“Well Fin is probably going to have Thanksgiving with Ken and Alejandro, but other than that no one really has anything going on. Amaro’s family is in California, Rollins is barely on speaking terms with her mother and sister, Sonny keeps dropping hints that he’s looking for an excuse not to go home to Staten Island, and Rafael, well, his grandmother…”

“So this would be a party?”

“Sort of. A dinner, with added talking before and after.”

“It could be fun. We could watch Sonny and Rafael pretend they’re not interested in each other.”

“You know that I’m not getting involved in that.”

“Yes, but I am.”

“So you’re in, on the Thanksgiving gathering?”

“Sure. It sounds like fun.”

“You do realize it’s something you’re actually going to have to plan, right?”

“Oh trust me, I know.”

“Welcome to the 3rd Annual Cabot-Benson Wholesome Thanksgiving, trademark. Further welcome to the 1st Annual Cabot-Benson Wholesome Thanksgiving With Family, also trademark. Please consult the seating chart displayed on the coffee table.”

“Seating chart?” Rafael asks, staring incredulously at the laminated piece of paper situated upright on the table.

“Yes. We don’t want chaos.” Alex watches as Rafael checks the seating chart, fully aware that his name is neatly labelled on the chair next to Sonny’s. Rafael rolls his eyes at her but says nothing. 

“Okay, everyone. Put your coats in the closet and go sit down. In return for being able to invite you tonight, I had to promise Alex that she could lay down some rules.”

“Rules?” Rollins asks. “That seems a little much.”

“I don’t mind,” Sonny says cheerfully. “It reminds me of home. You gotta make sure no one breaks things.”

“Thank you, Sonny. Sonny has the right idea,” Alex says. “Anyway, the rules are simple. No cursing. Noah will be joining us for the first part of dinner and I don’t want him picking anything up. Secondly, please refrain from cop stories. We are trying to eat, and do not need to be disgusted.”

“Here here,” Rafael chimes in and Alex nods at him.

“In return, it brings me great pain to impose a moratorium on legalese. That includes using ‘objection’ or ‘no objections’ as an affirmative or negative response.”

“Never mind, I like the rules,” Rollins adds, high-fiving Amaro. 

“Final rule: you all have to compliment Olivia’s turkey. This shouldn't be a problem, as Olivia’s turkey is the objectively the best turkey known to humankind. With that, I yield the floor, let the celebrations commence!”

Alex follows Olivia into the kitchen as they get ready to serve the sides.

“Great job, babe. Very authoritative,” Olivia says, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Thank you. I always excelled at public speaking.”

“Too bad you never use it in your career.”

“Save your jokes for the detectives, Liv, we wouldn’t want you to run out.”

“Please. I’m the commanding officer, they’ll laugh even if I'm not funny.”

“That is true,” Alex acknowledges. “I admit, it’s nice having other people here.”

“Yeah. I think this is what the appeal is.”

“Of what?”

“Family togetherness.”

“Oh God, we just learned the true meaning of Thanksgiving, didn’t we?” Alex sighs.

“I mean, they aren’t related to us by blood, so technically we could claim to maintain our originality, but I don’t see any reason to. They’re our family. That’s good. I’m happy about that.”

“So am I.”

“We’re starving!” calls Rafael from the dining room and Alex sighs.

“We should probably feed our new-found family.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm planning to maybe do more one-shots that focus on one ship and are linked to a certain holiday. I already have a plan for a Barisi Hanukkah fluff fic, so look out for that in about three weeks.
> 
> Anyway, thoughts? Is my romance writing passable? Did the 5+1 format work?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
